Until now, small molecule OLED materials could not be solution-processed. DuPont has broken the link between the type of OLED material and the choice of manufacturing process with the announcement of solution processing with small molecules.

Ken Werner
Senior Analyst and Editor of
Insight Media’s HDTV Retailer &
Mobile Display Report

Steve Sechrist
Senior Analyst and Editor of
Projection Monthly

At the Society for Information Display symposium and exhibition being held this week in San Francisco, DuPont announced the development of a solution printing process using small molecule OLED materials-and backed it up by exhibiting a 6-inch diagonal display that looked like it was ready for prime-time. Up until now, polymer materials (sourced primarily from CDT) have been exciting because they can be applied by "economical" ink jet printing. But small molecules have been used almost exclusively in commercial displays for products like cell phones because they are well developed and highly effective.

DuPont’s announcement opens the door to economic solution processing with well-proven small molecule OLED materials, eliminating the hard choice manufacturers were previously forced to make. Since only polymer materials were compatible with solution printing, manufactures wishing to use small molecules had to use vacuum thermal evaporation methods, which cannot be used with fabs larger than Gen 4.

DuPont repeatedly refused to reveal the specific nature of the printing process they used except to say it is "not ink jet printing". When we pressed the executives in an exclusive interview they did say the red OLED material used in the prototype was a DuPont product, but would not comment on the other two colors.

The company also said their printing process can be used with fluorescent or phosphorescent small-molecule OLED materials and with polymer materials "when they are ready".

Our take: DuPont’s development of this new solution process will allow OLED panel pricing to rival that of equivalent LCDs. Look for DuPont to announce an association with an Asian manufacturing partner within the next 18 months. –KW/SS